


boo!

by gloxinie



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Fluff, M/M, No Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 23:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloxinie/pseuds/gloxinie
Summary: Huh.Wait.“You’re dead.”Junhee nods solemnly. “Thanks. Couldn’t really figure that out myself.”





	boo!

**Author's Note:**

> when @blackbluewoo told me to write about death she sure didn't mean this

The first thing Donghun notices is the _smell_. It’s like someone had bought about fifteen lavender vanilla candles and lit them all at once for days on end – pungent, really. He shudders, then ducks out of the way of a beaded curtain falling in his direction, which results in him almost stepping on… is that a bird skull?

What the fuck kinda place is this?

“Come on in,” someone calls from beyond five more bead curtains and a blanket of smoke. (Donghun thinks that might come from incense sticks – Not that he can see any in all of this clutter.) Nevertheless, he soldiers on, pays mind to where he’s stepping, until he reaches the end of the room. A man – boy? – looks up at him from his phone. Motions for him to sit. His purple-gradient hair fits the interior design strikingly well.

“Hi,” the man says, and extends a hand for Donghun to shake. “You’re Byeongkwan’s friend, right?”

“...Yeah. Lee Donghun. Hi.”

“I’m Kang Yuchan, it’s nice to meet you. Have a seat, have a seat. So.” Yuchan puts away his phone and smiles genially at Donghun, hands folded on top of the table. The tablecloth has an eye motif repeated on it, which feels… unsettling, unsurprisingly, considering the rest of this place. “What are you looking for?”

“I…” Donghun really hasn’t thought this through, has he? “I’m looking to speak to the dead? _A_ dead person, specifically.”

“Aah.” Yuchan nods, a sympathetic little frown on his face that Donghun is almost certain is insincere. “I’m sorry for your loss. What was their name?”

“Park Junhee.”

“Mmm.” Yuchan bends down, then resurfaces with a pretty high quality looking spirit board, made from dark wood and inlaid with gold. “Give me your hands, put them like this – no, like that. Yes. Now close your eyes for me, focus, and tell me more about this person. As personally as you’re comfortable with.”

Yeah, this is absolutely not going well for Donghun right now.

“Well, he owned a dog daycare. He liked video games, dogs, uh… music?” Safe bet. Who doesn’t like music, right? “He had two sisters… blonde hair. Um.” Yuchan’s not saying anything, so he figures he should keep going somehow. “He was stabbed in the chest approximately twelve times and his social security number was–”

“Okay, okay, I think that’s enough,” Yuchan says. He sounds like he’s trying not to laugh at Donghun’s incompetence. “Let’s focus on his essence. Let’s reach out together to find him, okay?” A beat of silence. “Park Junhee, are you here? Can you hear us? Alright, open your eyes and look down at the board, please, and ask any question you wish answered.”

Donghun opens his eyes. Blinks a few times, looks at the way his and Yuchan’s fingers lay overlapped over a loose little piece of wood. It’s weirdly intimate, and that’s not exactly a point in anyone’s favour.

His fingers look weird like this. Have his knuckles always been so knobby?

Oh. Right. A question.

“Uh. Can I ask how he died?”

“You can, but I doubt he knows the number of stab wounds in his chest as well as you do,” Yuchan remarks drily. “Whatever you want to ask, address it directly to him, so he can answer us through the board.”

“Alright.” Donghun nods, takes a deep breath, steels himself. “Park Junhee,” he says, “who killed you?”

 

The second he sets foot back outside, he calls Byeongkwan.

“And?” Byeongkwan trills as he picks up after the first ring. “How’d it go? Do you have any new leads?”

“What the fuck, Byeongkwan,” Donghun grumbles as he stomps down the sidewalk. “That was a total bust. I asked who killed the guy, got absolutely nothing even resembling an answer, then that Yuchan guy charged me a hundred bucks and kicked me out. You call that a valuable asset?”

“Aw, c’mon.” Byeongkwan’s already whining, which is a new record. Usually it takes Donghun at least a full minute of nagging to get him to that point. “Remember when he helped me solve that assault case a while ago? The one you couldn’t crack either?”

“Yeah, maybe he just read the news and guessed, I don’t know. Point is, he didn’t help at all and you’d better pay me back.”

“Can’t you put this off as a work expense?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say here. Hello ma’am, here’s my expense report. Why yes, I did indeed spend precinct money on a trip to a _psychic_. What, you want to fire me? Can’t argue with that, actually, I’ll just go get my things and leave Byeongkwan over there alone and desk partner-less.”

Byeongkwan sighs.

“Maybe I see your point. A little bit. But you probably just didn’t ask the right questions, you know. Spirits are fickle beings.” The worst part is, he sounds legitimately serious and genuine, like he believes in all that crap. He probably does, the poor guy. Is that how Yuchan had scammed him?

“Whatever,” he says, resists the urge to roll his eyes for a second before he realises Byeongkwan won’t see him do it, and rolls his eyes extra hard. “Just take me out for lunch tomorrow.”

“Sushi?”

“Sure.”

“Alright.” He pauses. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, though. You’ll catch a break in the case sometime.”

“I’d fucking better, honestly. See you.”

“Bye!”

Lee Donghun has the worst type of best friend.

 

Donghun groans when he hears his alarm go off. No amount of adult life lived will ever make him be okay with the concept of waking up this early on a regular basis. He grumbles, sits up, rubs at his eyes, and grabs for his phone to swipe the alarm off.

Then he blinks, and stares right in the face of Park Junhee.

“Uh.”

Junhee waves at him. He’s sitting cross-legged on the other side of Donghun’s double bed, clad in comfortable looking white clothes, hair looking like he’d just rubbed it dry with a towel. “Hi,” he says. He sounds pretty much exactly like on the CCTV tape from his daycare, except a lot clearer. Which is obvious, because he’s in front of him.

Huh.

Wait.

“You’re dead.”

Junhee nods solemnly. “Thanks. Couldn’t really figure that out myself.”

“Why the fuck are you here. Am I high?” Donghun stares down at his hands. Pinches his arm. It stings a little. Then harshly presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. When he looks back up, Junhee is still there.

“Yeah. Definitely high,” he mutters to himself. “Does that Yuchan guy burn weed at his place? It didn’t really smell like it, but maybe…”

“Dude.” Donghun is snapped back out if it by a hand waving in front of his face. “Dude, you’ve never had a single drug in your life, have you? Weed doesn’t do that, you’d have to take something a _lot_ stronger to hallucinate a whole person.”

Donghun frowns.

“Well, how are you here, then?”

“You tell me, aren’t you the detective?”

Huh. Fair point. Donghun chews at the inside of his cheek for a bit, then reaches out to touch Junhee’s face. Junhee just blinks at him as his fingers pass right through his cheek.

“That’s so weird.”

“No shit, man,” Junhee responds.

“So you’re what, a ghost?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Have you been here all this time?”

Junhee frowns. “I don’t remember. I don’t think so, though.”

“Huh. Donghun nods, gets out of bed, and methodically starts to get dressed. When he looks back, Junhee had graciously averted his eyes, though he’s not sure if he should really be concerned about his modestly when he’s in the presence of a… dead person.

“Hey,” Donghun says, his other leg only halfway in the pant leg, “Who killed you, anyway?”

 

“So you really don’t remember anything?”

Even if Donghun’s probably making history right now by being the first person to directly talk to a ghost, he still has work to do, and that work involves him going to the precinct so his boss won’t axe him for slacking off and taking too much personal time. She thinks he goes on dates, which is laughable. He hasn’t had a date in six months.

Actually, that’s not anything to laugh about, now that he thinks about it. It’s just a little sad.

In any case, since he doesn’t want to leave an entire ghost to haunt his home unsupervised, that means herding Junhee into his car. He’d honestly doubted Junhee could even stay contained in the car, incorporeal as he is, but he’s managing to sit still in his seat so far. Hasn’t put a seatbelt on, though, which gives Donghun a lot more anxiety than it should. Also brings up memories from his traffic cop days, which he’s been very healthily repressing, thank you very much.

“Nope.” Junhee pops the p, looks out the window. “I mean, I remember some things, but I don’t remember who actually stabbed me. My head gets all fuzzy and out of focus when i try to remember.”

“Right. And why are you here to haunt me, specifically? Don’t you have a family or friends or something?”

Junhee shrugs. “Guess you’re the one actively trying to find who killed me?”

“So that’s what’s keeping you here? Not knowing who did it?”

“Buddy.” When Donghun glances over briefly, Junhee is looking at him like he’s either tired or just bored out of his mind. “I became a ghost literally what feels like ten minutes ago. Like, I vaguely remember you and some other guy trying to ask me something, then nothing for a while, then I appear in your bed. Poof.” He flails his arms about, and Donghun tries very hard not to flinch. It’s not like Junhee could smack him in the face even if he wanted to. “I don’t even know how I know you’re a detective, so not sure if you noticed, but I don’t exactly know any more than you do.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.” Donghun turns a corner and immediately starts heading towards the miraculously free parking space. “Do you think other people can see you?”

“That would probably be a lot to explain to everyone, so I hope not.”

“Are you okay with sitting in on my work then? Even if you don’t know who killed you, I want to ask you some questions, maybe we’ll find something that helps.”

Junhee extends his arm to indicate towards the rather grey, drab street laid out in front of them. “I don’t exactly have options,” he points out. “But I hope you’re good at your job.”

“Don’t worry.” Even with all this bullshit going on, Donghun can have faith in one thing: his ability. “I’m the best you can find in the area.”

 

“So,” Donghun sighs. He’s locked himself up in an archival room, perched precariously on a filing cabinet with his notebook balanced on his thighs. Junhee, for his part, is floating upside-down in the middle of the room. Sometimes he twirls, other times he sticks his face into the floor. It’s actually kind of unnerving.

“So,” Junhee echoes, then continues to blow on a stack of papers. It doesn’t budge.

“You don’t have any enemies you know of, you were never involved in anything illegal and none of your clients would have any grudges against you,” Donghun reads off his bullet point list. “To your knowledge, you’ve lived a perfectly average life without any major incidents.”

“Yeah, the becoming a ghost thing is sort of the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“That’s kinda sad.”

“Sure is, buddy!”

“So there’s nobody with sufficient personal motive to kill you.”

“None, I’m afraid. Or, well, not afraid actually? That’s a good thing.”

“It would be a good thing for anyone who hasn’t been murdered, Junhee.”

“Oh. Point taken.” Junhee slowly rotates until he’s upright again, then hovers closer to take a peek at Donghun’s notes. Up close like this, Junhee’s face only barely apart from his own, Donghun feels like he can feel cold radiating off Junhee’s form. Probably just something he’s imagining. Ghost placebo, if you will. “How long ago did I die anyway?” he asks, and rotates again until the tips of his hair fall through Donghun’s notebook. Donghun makes to swipe them away, but once more his hand passes through nothing but air.

“Go away, that’s annoying,” he says. Junhee doesn’t budge, just blinks at him until Donghun gives up and slumps back against the wall. “Two weeks,” he admits begrudgingly. “I got assigned pretty much immediately.”

“And you haven’t figured it out yet? Huh, you must not be the best detective.” Junhee grins at him, a sharp, impish grin that makes Donghun’s stomach jolt a little, then laughs out loud when Donghun makes to hit him with the edge of his hand.

“I’m the only detective you’ve got, so behave yourself, will you?”

“Fiiine,” Junhee drawls out. “But if you still can’t solve this case when you’ve got the literal murder victim talking to you, you might want to think about pursuing a different career.”

Donghun tries to smack him again and almost falls off his filing cabinet.

 

“Are you sure you want to see this?” Donghun whispers. Even trying to stay as quiet as possible, his voice still echoes in the large room, and the coroner quirks a quizzical eyebrow at him. Donghun just smiles. It’s pretty strained.

“Well, here’s the victim,” the coroner says as they pull out the metal slab Junhee’s body is laid on, then fold back the thin white sheet from over his body. “Do you need a rundown on the cause of death again?”

Donghun takes a look at the multiple stab wounds tearing through Junhee’s chest, still striking against the rest of his skin even though it’s been a while, and shrugs. “You did a pretty good job last time. Can I be alone with the body for a while?”

“That’s not really standard policy, you know.”

“I just… need to think.”

The coroner looks at him for a while, then rolls their eyes and saunters up to the door. “I’ll be outside, let me done when you’re finished. No more than fifteen minutes.” They close the door behind them then, but Donghun swears he hears something to the effect of ‘fucking detectives’ muttered before they are completely out of sight.

When Donghun turns around, Junhee’s name already on his lips, Junhee is gone.

He thinks about panicking for a quick second. After all, who knows what can happen if you reunite a ghost with its body? Did he just disappear? Did Donghun lose his best lead on this case?

Junhee sits up from his own corpse and waves at him. “Why are you looking like that?” he asks. “Have you never seen a corpse before? Some detective you are.”

“Why are you laying down in your own body?”

Junhee shrugs. “Figured I might as well try it out.”

“And what did you find?”

“My chest hurts?”

Donghun rolls his eyes so hard he’s pretty sure he injures something at the back of his eyes, while Junhee just giggles at him, ghostly hair hanging into his eyes, shoulders a little hunched up. Donghun wants to reach out and push his hair back, except he can’t do that.

Also, professionalism.

Also, he’s a _ghost_ , what the _fuck_ Lee Donghun.

Instead of vocalising any of that, he steps closer to the body, runs a cursory glance over it. The places where Junhee’s bodies overlap make his eyes hurt, like a 3D effect that’s just on the wrong side of slightly off. It’s hard to focus like this.

“Do you have these wounds on your body too?” He lifts a hand, lets it hover over Junhee’s chest, but doesn’t touch. The coroner would have, well, a coronary. (He’s so funny, seriously.)

“Dunno. Haven’t checked.” Junhee tugs at the hem of his white shirt, then tugs it away from his body and just kinda stares into the hole for a while.

“And?” Donghun prods, slowly beginning to feel impatient. Talking to the ghost of your deceased subject is so much less helpful than supernatural TV shows make it seem.

“Yeah, they’re here. Man, looks like they’re bleeding? Gruesome stuff. Oh, also I apparently have ghost abs now, wanna see?”

And that’s officially the end of Donghun’s rope. With a huff, he turns around and stomps back towards the entrance.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I have actual work to do, so if you can’t help here, I’m just gonna go do that now.” And he summarily tunes out Junhee’s whining about how boring he is.

 

Junhee spends the day shadowing Donghun at work, contributing absolutely nothing to anything except Donghun’s already crumbling sanity. When Donghun finally clocks out and closes the car door with a heavy sigh, Junhee is already sitting in the passenger seat, blinking at him as if this were a completely normal situation that happened every time for him.

Maybe it is. Could ghosts be professional ghosts? Do ghosts have societies? Friends? What’s the afterlife even like, anyway? He’d ask Junhee all these questions, but Junhee doesn’t seem to know, or care to know, for that matter. He’s just busy trying to annoy Donghun to throw him off in front of other people, the dick.

He’s starting to understand the person who killed him, the more he thinks about it.

The upside to the annoyance sticking around instead of haunting, oh, literally anyone else, is that when they arrive home, he has someone to nag at him for his life choices.

(No, downside, he meant downside.)

“You cooked all this healthy stuff and now you’re just chugging alcohol?” Junhee whines at him. Donghun quirks an eyebrow at him from behind the rim of his shot glass, then knocks back the clear liquid without further comment.

“Ugh.” Junhee scrunches up his nose in what’s probably supposed to be intimidating but looks like a baby lizard’s first five minutes outside the eggshell. “You’ll drink yourself into an early grave.”

“You’re just jealous you don’t get to drink anymore.”

Junhee’s quiet.

Donghun looks at him, then down at his shot, and starts laughing.

“Are you _laughing_ at me?” Junhee’s entirely sincere indignance just makes Donghun break out further, roll on his side and pat his stomach as he tries to collect himself. “You know, I’m literally dead, show some sympathy?”

“Fine, fine… ah…” Donghun shakes his head, rubs at his warmed-up cheeks, and looks at up at Junhee, floating in the air, pout puffing up his face adorably. “It’s just. All of this is so ridiculous. You were stabbed to death, and you worry about soju.”

Junhee looks down at his ghostly hands, shimmering under the lamp light, cracks a smile, and floats down to sit next to Donghun. “You’re probably right. I’m still gonna complain though.”

“Knock yourself out.”

 

The next morning, Donghun wakes again to a half-translucent face staring at him. He should know to expect it now, but it still makes him jump, clutch his chest and exhale deeply as Junhee distances himself with a worried expression.

“Do you always do that?” Donghun manages when he’s relearned how to breathe.

“Do what?”

“Stare at people while they’re sleeping?”

Junhee coughs. “What am I, a vampire? No, I… just got bored. A little.”

That makes Donghun frown. “Bored?”

“I don’t really… sleep,” Junhee explains, “and I tried haunting some stuff last night, but I didn’t figure out how to turn on electrical devices, so no TV for me.”

What a bizarre conversation first thing in the morning. Donghun groans, rubs both his hands over his face, frowns when his palms catch on stubble. “Didn’t I tell you not to haunt the TV?”

“But I was _bored_ ,” Junhee whines, and honestly, Donghun can’t really fault the man.

“Fine, we’ll figure that out after I’ve had breakfast.”

Even though that’s as clear a dismissal as Donghun can give, Junhee trails him to the bathroom. By which Donghun means he locks the door, and then Junhee floats right on through it. Of course. Because that’s how things are in his life now.

“D’you mind?”

“Not at all,” Junhee smiles genially, but he does turn away a little bashfully as Donghun undresses for a shower, which is a little bit more adorable than he has any right to be. Hearing the ghost hum a song to himself while separated from Donghun by the shower curtain, he wonders what the man was like when he was still alive.

Possibly much of the same, except with less floating in midair. (Hopefully, or he’d have to make a few very concerned phone calls.)

 

During breakfast, Junhee keeps sneaking glances out the window. Donghun lives on the third floor, and his kitchen window provides a good view of the park across the street. It’s sunny today, good weather, fitting for families and pet owners on an outing. Donghun himself hasn’t gone out for a walk in a pretty long time – work is keeping him consistently busy.

Technically, it’s Junhee’s fault he’s so busy now, but he’s not going to tell him that. Not unless he annoys him, anyway.

“What day is it today?”

“Hm?” Donghun chews, swallows, checks his phone. “Saturday. Why?”

Junhee nods, scratches at his chin. “Can we go out?”

“Like, on a date? You know that’s not really–”

“No, no, I meant– okay, don’t look so offended.”

“I’m not offended.”

“Sure you aren’t. What I meant,” clarifies Junhee, “is can we go outside. I want to go back to the daycare. Is it still a crime scene or something?”

Huh. Donghun inclines his head. “It shouldn’t be,” he tries. “Everything was cleaned up pretty fast. Last I heard, your employee took over the place. Do you want to see what happened to it?”

Junhee shrugs. “I just kinda wanna see the dogs, actually.”

And, well, who is Donghun to deny a dead man a wish, right?

 

Turns out, not only does Junhee get to see the dogs, but also the dogs get to see _him_.

It’s weird, really. One second, Donghun pushes open the door to the daycare and greets the employee present with a cursory smile; the other, a medium-sized army of dogs storms into the reception area, barking and tail-wagging and all.

“I’m so sorry,” the employee wheezes, flustered, and tries to grab a Golden Retriever’s collar from where the group of dogs are clustered around Donghun and Junhee, jumping up and trying to paw at the air above them. Junhee, for his part, grins wider than Donghun has seen him grin so far, and sits down on the floor. Immediately, all the dogs crowd even closer to try and sniff him to no avail.

“Really,” the employee continues. Her name tag reads Yerim. “They’re not usually that energetic, they haven’t been since the previous owner…” She trails off, clears her throat. “Of course you know all about that. Uh. What can I do for you, do you have any follow-up questions about what happened? Can I offer you anything to drink?”

Donghun really doesn’t have anything that he needs answered very urgently. He tries to discreetly look at Junhee, at how his hand repeatedly passes through the dogs’ heads as he tries to pet them, and at how freely he’s laughing.

“Yeah, actually, that would be nice. There’s some things I’d like to clarify. Do you want to talk in the employee area?”

Yerim nods, seemingly a little relieved to not have to deal with the dogs immediately, and leads him away.

 

“So?”

Junhee whines and sinks into the ground until only his upper body is visible, then buries his face in his hands. “I love dogs so much,” he states, the resoluteness of it undercut by how wobbly and emotional his voice is.

“Are you really about to have a breakdown about dogs? Of all things? Right now?”

“They’re just so _cute_! Donghun, I really can’t deal. I can’t.”

Donghun rolls his eyes, but it feels like more of a fond gesture this time. “Come on,” he says, “let’s go figure out how to possess things so you can watch dog videos when I’m out.”

In an instant, Junhee snaps back up to float by his side. They’re eye level, but when Donghun looks down, he realises Junhee’s feet are hovering a little above the ground. “This,” Junhee intones seriously, “is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“That’s just tragic.”

“Do I care?”

 

A week passes. They make tremendous progress in the areas of object possession and impromptu dog location, but not so much when it comes to Donghun’s actual job. So he finds himself in his usual bar, beer set on the table, Byeongkwan sitting opposite him.

“I really thought Yuchan could help,” Byeongkwan laments into his caipirinha. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Donghun says, perhaps a little stiffly. He can’t decide whether teasing Byeongkwan or dropping the issue is the right move, considering he’s pretty sure Yuchan did actually do… well, something. Maybe not what he asked for, but definitely something.

“Seriously, his boyfriend said he’s a legit medium, it’s how they got together and all. Maybe it was just a fluke?” Byeongkwan swirls the broad straw in his drink as he talks. He looks properly dejected, and Donghun can’t help but reach over and pat his arm.

“It’s his boyfriend, he’s bound to be biased,” he offers.

“I really believed him, though?” Byeongkwan pulls back, then, fumbles with his phone for a bit, and presents Donghun with a selfie of himself with this black-haired guy clad in pretty stereotypical witchy accessories. “He was super nice and all. He just really believed in Yuchan, and I did too, so…”

From next to Donghun, Junhee tries his best not to laugh. “He’s cute,” he whispers. Donghun has a mind to whisper back that there’s no reason for him to whisper, except he can’t really do that.

“It’s fine,” he repeats instead, feeling kind of lost. “It wasn’t a total bust, I mean, the, uh… aesthetics of the apartment were nice, I guess?”

“Guess they were,” Byeongkwan nods. “Anyway, did you hear they want to run a TV special on Yerim? Like the one they did with Junhee, I mean.”

“Really? It feels pretty early to be doing that.”

“Right? But apparently they’re helping raise some money to help things move along until she can find more people to work for her. So it’s not all bad, I guess.”

“Mm.” Donghun can’t help but let his eyes flit over to Junhee for a second. It’s almost second nature at this point, seeing how he’s doing.

Junhee is frowning down at the tabletop, eyebrows furrowed, jaw set.

Huh.

Donghun stays for a while longer, but excuses himself pretty quickly once he realises Junhee’s mood isn’t going to get any better. He’s not really that worried, not originally, but when Junhee ignores a dog that runs up to him, Donghun’s just about ready to call the ghost police.

“So, what happened?” Donghun asks once he closes the apartment door behind himself. He knows Junhee can hear him, even if he takes a while to float through the solid surface. “Is it the documentary thing?”

“No, I’m just… thinking,” Junhee mutters from behind him – Donghun is proud he’s suppressed the urge to flinch as thoroughly as possible at this point.

“About…?”

Junhee pads over to Donghun’s most comfortable armchair. Donghun kind of feels like this is a waste, since he has no idea if ghosts can even comprehend the comfortableness of seats, but he supposes now is not the time to complain. Junhee curls up in his new seat, pulls his bottom lip in between his thumb and his index finger, and clearly thinks of how to put something.

“When we were filming for the documentary, there was this… this guy. I kinda felt like I should know who he was, you know? He acted that way. I just figured I’d met him on the street or something, so I was nice to him, but I’m pretty sure he expected something different.”

“Positive or negative different?”

“I’m really not sure, honestly. He kept just, like, looking? Staring? I think he wanted me to say something to him, but I never did.”

“And what’d he do then?”

“He left?” Junhee shrugs. “Just… can we go back to the daycare when he’s back?”

“Ah.” Donghun nods. “You think he may be a lead, then.”

“Yeah. It’s honestly impossible how I keep doing your work for you, Mr. Detective,” Junhee drawls, breaking out in one of his ‘I’m saying this specifically to fuck with you’ grins that Donghun has learned to know better than he’d ever wanted over the past few days.

“If you’re so good, why are you dead?”

“Because I’d be too powerful otherwise.” Junhee winks, which, oh, that’s a new one, and stretches his arms over his head. His clothing stays firmly in place, not that Donghun notices, because that would be just dumb.

“You cried at a bunny video yesterday, buddy.”

“So did you, asshole!”

Well, Donghun can’t argue with that.

 

In the end, the entire situation is just incredibly anticlimactic.

The guy Junhee points out, a cameraman, takes one look at Donghun in his police uniform and just starts shaking like a leaf. After that, it really only takes a couple minutes of threatening to drag him to Donghun’s ‘friend’ who collects skulls (not the human kind, which he doesn’t have to know) for him to confess to first degree murder.

Huh, Donghun muses when he watches him be carted away in the back of a police vehicle, his cases should always be this easy.

“You should hire me,” Junhee says from way too close behind Donghun. “I’m clearly way too good at this.”

“Sure you are,” Donghun answers drily. “The guy ring any bells yet?”

“Either we dated once or he just really hated my haircut?”

“I doubt anyone would kill you over a haircut.”

“Did you watch the documentary? It’s the one I had at the start, the silver one.”

Oh. Donghun shudders. “I take it back. _I_ would have murdered you for that.”

“Aah.” Junhee grasps his chest with both hands, pretends to swoon. “I love having wonderful friends.”

“Friends?” Donghun scoffs. “Don’t kid yourself.”

“Sure…” Junhee outright cackles at Donghun’s expression, stressed since he can’t fight this guy physically, and looks up at the sky. “It’s nice weather,” he comments off-handedly.

Donghun doesn’t reply, just starts on the walk back to the precinct. He does wonder, now that things are resolved. That doesn’t mean he’s going to bring it up.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me what I’ll be doing now?” Junhee whines, too close to his ear for comfort. Donghun tsks and shrugs his shoulder, though it does precious little to shake him.

“I thought you didn’t know shit about being a ghost?” he shoots back. “I’m assuming you’ll find eternal peace and leave, or something. I hope so, at least, you’re annoying.”

“Sure I am.”

 

When Donghun wakes up the next day and sees Junhee grinning brightly at him from above him, he’s not surprised in the least.

 

(“Aren’t you moving on yet? Taking the great train to the sky or something?”

“You’re more fun to annoy.”

“Just say you’re just here for the dogs and go.”)

**Author's Note:**

> hewwo find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/gloxinie_) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/gloxinie)


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